Ghosts
by backdrifter
Summary: Everyone has ghosts in their past. Kate, Daniel and Miles are trekking through the jungle on their way to the Black Rock. Dan and Miles flashback, and there's something lurking in the jungle... *Dan flashback now up.
1. Mangoes

"Stop!"

Kate's sudden exclamation made both Daniel and Miles jump out of their skins. She had grabbed Daniel's arm, who had in turn, instinctively, grabbed the hand that held him, and looked at her with concern.

"What is it?" Miles asked sharply.

"Somebody's been here recently." Nobody said anything and Miles and Daniel exchanged looks. Daniel looked nervous. He crossed over to Kate and looked at where she was rooting around, watching her with that way he had that annoyed Miles, like he was taking everything that you were doing in and working it out, storing it away for future reference.

"Do you know which way they went?" he asked.

Kate frowned and thought a moment. Then she straightened up, pointed in a vague direction and said, with a smile "That way."

"Great," Dan said. "Cause we're going this way."

Miles laughed, because Dan had not been referring to the way Kate had pointed, but had nodded in the direction that they were walking anyway, the way to the Black Rock and the explosives. Perhaps they had been spending too much time together, but Dan was growing on Miles. But he could still be damn annoying. Especially when he was talking about science.

"What, and get attacked by whoever's out there?!"

Miles was taken aback by just how paranoid these guys had gotten. Or maybe this chick was just into chasing trouble.

"Stranger go that way," Miles said in his best cave man voice (which was a little half hearted even at that) while jabbing out his hand appropriately. "We go that way. What's the problem?"

Kate narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. She wasn't going to argue over this, was she?

"Look, why don't we take a break and cool off?" Miles suggested, shrugging and dropping his back on the floor. "Looks like we've got to climb down a way to get anywhere, anyway. Might as well rest while we're somewhere convenient."

They were standing in front of a sharp but manageable drop. Across the valley, on the other side of the large stream down below, more jungle rose up before them. There were three conveniently placed boulders surrounding them, and Miles took them one further away from Kate and Dan. He stared out of the break in the foliage at the scene before them.

Daniel sat himself down on a rock and looked around himself, and Kate sighed and sat herself down next to him and opened her bag. She took out a mango and bit into it, tearing the skin open, and then she used her fingers to pull it away.

"What are you doing?" Miles asked.

Kate gave him an incredulous look.

"I'm eating," she said, and then her expression softened and she reached into her backpack again. "Here, have one."

She threw Miles a mango, who caught it, and then after a thought she handed one to Daniel. Miles turned the mango over and ran his palm over its smooth skin. He took a pocket knife and cut into it and a drop of juice ran down his hand and onto his wrist. He raised his wrist to his lips and pressed it to his mouth, closing his eyes.

As the taste spread across his taste buds he was suddenly standing in a ray of light in a kitchen with dirty yellow walls almost a quarter of a century earlier with a thirteen year old girl with golden hair. They both held mango skins to their mouths, eating the last remnants of their flesh. They didn't speak; the only sound was the occasional sucking noise or quiet groan of pleasure. The silence in the air was the comfortable type shared between two long time acquaintances.

"Can I use your knife when you've done with it?"

Miles' eyes snapped open.

"Sure," he said to Daniel, and he quickly cut the mango in half, stoned it, and sliced criss-crosses across the flesh of the fruit. As he did so the phantom of a girl's hand guided his knife, and he could almost hear her voice saying 'I get the stone.'

They ate in silence, and the silence contained the same tenseness that had hung over them since they'd set off from the helicopter. Miles took his time over the mango, eating each individual chunk with appreciation. The truth was "what" that Miles had been referring to wasn't the fact that she was eating, but the way she was eating. Long ago somebody had taught him the art of eating a mango, somebody who adored that fruit, for whom it was a food of the gods, and if anyone merely tore away the skin and bit into it the way Kate had just done it seemed an affront.

He heard Kate and Dan start talking, and he looked up suddenly to see them standing in the gap in the foliage, with their backs to him. The image of the two of them standing brought back a memory that had long been dormant in his mind. It didn't seem to have much to do with it, but he supposed it was the mangoes that did it. He sighed and threw the mango stone over his shoulder. This island had too many ghosts.

Miles wore a pair of blue shorts and his favourite t-shirt. It was the height of summer, and the hottest day of the year so far. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and then ran his palm over the stubby black hair on his head. If it were up to him he would have been playing in the relatively cool confines of the house, away from the powerful and unforgiving sun. But it wasn't. The little girl who lived upstairs, and could be described as Miles' best friend, had a firm will and a persuasive tongue.

It was her idea to cut across the little park (barely a park) and a little way down Patton Street to the Old House, on whose gate they now stood, two pairs of skinny legs and two pairs of eyes staring at the ominous looking building in front of them.

Millie looked particularly innocent, with her blue-eyed blond haired looks along with the summer frock her mother had insisted on her wearing and the smudges of sun block that hadn't been rubbed in properly because she'd been squirming under the unwanted attention.

At school the two ten year olds didn't associated with one another, partly due to the fear of taunts of "Miles and Millie", partly due to the fact that in school Miles was cool and edgy. Millie was a good girl. At school Miles was the brave cocky one, but outside on their street Millie could be wild. While Miles' large dark eyes stared at the house with apprehension, Millie's were round with anticipation.

Yet it was unusual for Miles to show such uneasiness. He and Millie were usually partners in crime, but in this scenario he seemed to be the henchman. The Old House, so named because it was over a hundred years old, was rumoured to be the residence of murders, of wicked old witch ladies who kept their retarded nephew who ate babies brains in the cellar, to be haunted, built over Indian burial grounds and all those kinds of legends that old, imperious looking houses gather from children.

"Let's go," Millie said. And climbed over the gate, which was locked. Miles gritted his teeth and followed her.

They walked on tiptoes, for some reason, down the stone path, past the overgrown shrubbery and up the wooden steps to door. Millie raised her fist to knock, but Miles grabbed her wrist. She gave him a vicious look.

"The door's open," he explained in a whisper.

Millie's eyes shot to the crack between the door and the doorframe and an excited but frightened smile spread over her face. Her blue eyes grew wider.

"No," Miles hissed, shaking his head.

"Scared?" she whispered.

"I'm not, I…"

"You're scared. Chicken. Buck buck buck."

Miles pursed his lips angrily and pushed the door open. The smile dropped from Millie's face and her mouth opened in a silent O of surprise, but then she grinned again, if nervously, and followed him.

They entered into a large space that wasn't quite a room but that was definitely more than a hallway. A curved stairway rose up before them, and a large chandelier hung from the high ceiling. They turned around as they took the insides of the house. It was decorated in dark colours, reds and browns mainly, and the drapes were heavy and thick.

Millie was starting to relax, but Miles had tensed up. He stopped looking around and cocked his ear, staring into the middle distance. Was that a whispering? He wanted to ask Millie

Miles squinted and tried to listen harder. He winced as a shard of pain erupted in his head.

"Miles?"

He could make out voices now, among them a man with a deep voice, an old woman. A child._ What are they doing here? Trespassers. It's such a nice day outside. Let's go sledding. _Sledding?_ Oh, Mr Smith wouldn't be glad to see them. Well, he should have locked the door properly. Mary, this is filthy, go over this spot again. They're only kids. They're harmless. Little thieves if you ask me. Vandals._

"Miles!"

But Miles could no longer make out Millie's voice from what seemed like the hundreds invading his head. The pain had escalated and he tried to stop listening but the voices keep crowding into his head. He couldn't control it.

Millie looked at him with horror. He had gone deathly pale and had a look of shear pain on his face. He started to shake. She was afraid to touch him but called up her courage to grab him and shake him. Something dripped on the floor. Millie looked up at his face. A trickle of blood ran from his nose down his chin.

"Miles!" she shouted again, tears welling up in her eyes. "Miles, stop it!"

And then he dropped to the floor. Millie couldn't hold him and he his limbs started to jerk uncontrollably. Saliva frothed from his mouth. Millie took a step forwards and then back again, unsure of what to do as he spasmed on the floor.

"Miles, please!"


	2. Heroes

_A/N - Ok, here's the Daniel flashback. Yay. My favourite new character. Except the more I do Miles flashback, the more I warm to him. I may seem like a wanker, but I think it's a defensive thing._

_This is what I started with, but I thought I'd put Miles' first flashback first. It's actually not the very first thing I started with. That's for later ;). Anyway, this is number two of four chapters. It looks like I'm going to finish a fanfiction for once! Go me. But if more is wanted afterwards, I've got an idea for a follow up._

Chapter Two: Hero 

"Why are you helping us?" Dan asked as he and Kate looked out over the jungle. Behind them Miles sat eating a mango with painful carefulness.

"Because Locke and Jack have gone crazy," Kate said as if it were as obviously as the fact that she was a woman.

A smile fluttered over Dan's features and he turned to give Kate a knowing look.

"Yeah?" he said in a leading tone.

Kate smiled and blushed. Dan knew that this wasn't the only reason. Was she that obvious?

"And because Sawyer is helping you," she admitted with the tilt of her head.

Dan smirked, but tried to suppress it with little success.

"Don't act so smug."

"Who's, eh, being smug?" he said slowly, taking a while to get each word out.

Kate paused and then asked, "What's the story with you and Charlotte? I can't see a freighter as being that romantic."

"We, eh, met before the ship," Dan said. "Before we got involved with this project."

"Which is…?"

"Eh… none of your business?" Dan said without aggression, and then apologised. "Sorry. It's different things, anyway. Miles, I've almost no idea. He's a very… challenging guy. In more ways than one."

"I'll give you that," Kate said. She decided to change the subject. "You were a Professor, weren't you?"

"I was."

"I did a semester at college, and had the biggest crush on one professor," Kate volunteered. She giggled. "I can't even remember his name, now. And I can't make up my mind whether it was an authority figure thing or a forbidden thing." Kate paused. "Did you get many love sick students?"

"Erm… not really," Dan said uncomfortably. "I can't really see myself being…"

"Not really…?" Kate said, picking out the part that suggested that there was a story here.

Dan didn't say anything, so she answered for him.

"You mean, yes," she said.

There was that girl again. Slightly older, a year at university does a lot, less dreamy looking, less relaxed, but still her. She sat up straight, was attentive to the girl she had come in. But it was still her. Small, brown wavy hair, with a healthy glow to her cheeks and a smile that was ever so slightly sexy and ever so slightly innocent. Except, Daniel noticed, when she smiled at her companion, a pretty blond girl, it didn't have this quality. It was slightly strained. But there were moments when she seemed to internalise, or stretch out further than the other girl, and she smiled at something she saw or thought. At these moments she seemed more relaxed, dreamier, suddenly separate from the world, or at least attached to a part further away than her immediate surroundings. Maybe she hadn't changed that much. What was it that made her on edge?

He suddenly felt a pair of eyes on him. The blond girl. He looked away and tried to find something to fix his attention on. His notes. He tried to prevent himself from looking up at then, and luckily it was time to start the lecture.

This girl – woman – had sat in on a few of his lectures last year, during the second term. She wasn't a physics student. Daniel didn't know her name. He saw her in the corridors sometimes, talking with a friend or going to class. A couple of times he saw here waiting outside the library, walking back and forth and looking at the posters and flyers on the wall. She had a restlessness to her, as if she were waiting for something to happen or appear or the world was holding her back and she was waiting for it to catch up. He wondered if she was actually reading what was written on those posters.

He kept on glancing at her during the lecture, he couldn't help it, but luckily she wasn't looking at him. When she'd sat in on his lectures before she'd seldom looked away from him, slouched with her feet dangling over the back of the seat in front or forwards with her chin on her arm. She seemed uncomfortable now. Before she'd had the cocky air of someone who knew they had an absolute right to be there, challenging people in general to ask her what she was doing in a physics lecture, but now she seemed like she felt she was a trespasser, embarrassed that somebody might turn around and point at her and say "She's not a physicist."

Her friend was paying attention to the lecture and writing notes with a quiet confident air, and she in turn was paying attention to this. Perhaps she was here because of the blond girl. He sighed inwardly to think that he was developing some kind of crush on someone who he didn't know, but at least he wasn't likely to see her in lectures again. But that thought made Daniel's stomach twist up in regret. What a fool he was! He knew he was better off on his own. He always ended up hurt, and, besides, what good could he do anyone? He was unstable. He was holding onto his position at Oxford by the tips of his fingers.

When the lecture was over the students began to file out of the lecture theatre and he watched the two girls out of the corner of his eye. When he saw them coming down towards him and panicked and started to busy himself with his papers, pretending not to have noticed their approach.

"Sir, can I just clarify something?" the blond girl said, biting her lip and blinking. Luckily the other girl was standing a few feet away and was not watching, so he turned to her and gave her his full attention.

There was some debate over whether to light a fire or not. Fire draws some unwanted things, but it frightens others away. In the end they decided it that they would risk it, and they settled down for the night.

To Daniel's distress, another argument seemed to be building between Kate and Miles. He tried throwing in the odd hesitant contribution to try and diffuse the situation, but nothing he said could have done much for long.

"C'mon, you can't seriously say Big Bird was the best?" Miles spat. "He wasn't even a puppet. He was just some loser in a yellow suit!"

"At least he was better than Elmo!" Kate said with raised eyebrows.

"Hey, Elmo had a personality that wasn't just big and yellow."

"I would have thought you'd like Oscar the Grouch," Kate said slyly.

"Wha-?" Miles began, but Daniel too this chance to throw in his last line of defence.

"I'm going to take a leak," he said, getting up. His last line of defence involved getting out of the picture. "Personally I liked the worm," he added, avoiding eye contact.

Miles and Kate both stopped and frowned slightly, watching him disappearing into the darkness, and then their gaze met in silence, seemingly having lost the conversation.

"The worm?" Miles said faintly.

Dan felt his way blindly through the undergrowth, trying not to think about snakes or polar bears. He thought about getting to the Black Rock and meeting up with Charlotte and Frank and the two survivors that had come with them. It had been Kate's idea to split up and travel as two separate groups for safety. When he judged himself to be a good distance from the camp, he unzipped his flies and let rip. He let a moan escape him. He'd been bursting.

When he had finished he zipped himself back up and he had just turned to leave when he heard something. Footsteps. He stopped, and so did the steps. Dan strained to hear anything in the darkness, barely daring to breath. Was that breathing he could here? It was unusually heavy. It slowed down into almost nothing, like whoever or whatever it was was trying to control its own breathing.

"Hello?" he ventured. No reply. Perhaps he was hearing things again. And then he heard it again, but so quiet that it was like he was imagining it. Footsteps, footsteps going away from him. He waited a moment, and then returned to the camp.

"Who's going to keep watch first?"

He thought it best not to tell them about what he'd heard. For one thing, Kate and Miles were too easy to get riled up, and for another, if whoever it was thought he knew they were there, then if they were up to no good they'd strike sooner. That's if they had been there at all.

Daniel was in an uneasy state. The scene from which he had just come was playing in his mind. Jenny, pretty, blond, intelligent and eager, was a first year student and easily one of his most promising. She had always been friendly, but he had never realised how friendly until that evening, at about six o'clock, when she came to his office with a query about the effects of magnetism on light. The point wasn't hard to explain, and he had commented that he was surprised that such an intelligent girl couldn't work it out for herself.

"Well, the truth is, _Professor_, I didn't really have a problem with that in the first place…"

Daniel swallowed and pushed the scene out of his mind. He had done the right thing and refused her advances, and although if their academic relationship had not been an issue he wasn't sure he wouldn't have anyway. Nonetheless, he was flustered and in two halves about the experience, and he had decided to walk home and clear his head.

He was walking along a dark street. There was a blackout along this road, it seemed; the orange street lights were all black and no light shone through cracks in a window. He was starting to feel a little like he was the only person in the world, and then he heard it. A woman's voice, shouting, squealing. Scuffling. A man's voice. Daniel looked behind himself. It was coming from a side alley. He walked back to the mouth of the alley. There was definitely a struggle going on.

He froze, not sure what to do, a sense of self-preservation kicking in, along with the knowledge of his own spinelessness. What should he do? He couldn't just stand there.

"Hello?!" he offered timidly in a raised voice. The scuffling immediately ceased and there was a pause before he heard feet running in the other direction.

He took a few steps down the alley and then heard a sob. Then a the moon, full and silver, came out from behind a cloud and lit up a face he recognised but that was a stranger to him. Two round eyes rose to meet him and both their faces softened in recognition, but after that brief moment of relief on her face it crumpled like a piece of paper. In another instant she regained some form of control over her features.

Daniel moved towards her slowly, hesitantly.

"I… I'm Daniel Faraday," he said lamely, feeling like he was intruding on something. "Professor Daniel Faraday."

"I know," she managed. He was only a few feet from her now, she hadn't moved from where she stood, leaning against the brickwork of the wall behind her, hugging herself with her arms.

"He didn't…?" Daniel started, and then he could of kicked himself for almost asking that. But the girl shook her head.

"No," she said. "I don't know… I don't know if he would have."

Daniel looked down at the ground screaming at himself inside his own head. Why did he have to act so apologetic in the way he spoke and acted?

He took another step towards her, and raised his hand as if about to put it on her shoulder and say something comforting. Then her face seemed open up to him and show its vulnerability to him, and in a moment Daniel found his arms around her, holding her to him, her cheek pressed so hard against his shoulder it felt like she was trying to become a part of him.

He held her tighter, and they stood there clasping each other, trembling. He could smell her hair, clean and for some reason slightly fruity, and thought how long it had been since he'd smelt a woman's hair. She breathed heavily, audibly, like she had just been running, and he felt his own breathing escalate and mirror hers. He felt her panic and relief and he wanted to make the panic dissolve into thin air and bring the relief into a full blooming flower. He wanted to whisper something to her, about how he wanted her, but kept silent.

How long they stood there locked in that embrace he didn't know, but eventually she raised her head and he relaxed his grip, and she looked at him with a look that seemed to him entirely trusting.

"Thank you," she said as they parted.

"I didn't do anything," he replied.

After he walked her home they didn't speak again. They'd occasionally pass in the corridors, and when they did Dan longed to say something to her, but he felt that he'd left it too late. He felt the coward inside him raise its ugly head.


	3. New Years

A/N Apologies for not finishing this. Exams and summer piled up, and then my computer broke and I lost EVERYTHING!!! : (

So, from my head I'll try and see if I can squeeze out what was going to happen. Here's what I remember from chapter three (I'm still working on chapter four), but spilt up into what's happening "now", and the flashbacks (which are Miles') instead of intermingling them to make it simpler to write. I tried rewriting properly but I just can't match what I wrote before and it's taking too long for something I'm not satisfied with… grrr. Damn computers.

I'll have Chapter Four up within the week.

Anyway, I hope this is at least a little satisfying!

**CHAPTER THREE**

**_THE PRESENT_**

An interesting girl appears out of the jungle. I forget what the story of her getting there was. I think she was on a boat with a couple of friends and maybe their father and brother, and it shipwrecked. She's been alone on the island for over a year, hiding from the Others, who slaughtered most of her companions while her and another were out looking for food. The boy left over dies of dysentery or something like that.

She bursts out of the jungle and there's a struggle. They manage to restrain her and starting to question her. She's very willing to talk – but not so much about herself as about Daniel. She reveals a lot about him that makes them very confused, as well as bits and pieces about Miles and Kate, and then she says something even stranger. That in the past she knew the future Daniel. They let go of her when she explains her own story they let her go with them to the Black rock. She's been following them and making sure they were ok. At some point her and Daniel have a moment, and it leaves him feeling very strange and she seems a little frustrated and restraining something deep down.

In the meantime Kate and Miles are starting to get on better together. They are both less willing to trust this mysterious woman who knows so much. They find that they have things in common, but still bicker.

**_MILES' PAST_**

The girl in chapter one was Miles' best friend growing up and lives in the flat upstairs. Their parents didn't approve – Millie's parents were racist, and his knew that hers were racist. They had different friends in high school, and Miles' were losers and bad kids. Her friends are smart and successful and quite popular. In school they're strangers, but have a secret friendship. She knows he's not very happy but he won't admit it to her.

Miles was in love with Millie, but to afraid to do anything about it. Then one day they spend New Years together alone in her house, they kiss, and that changes everything. They continue a clandestine relationship, particularly hiding it from her father who is violent towards his wife, until one tragic day.

Miles wakes up from a terrible nightmare. It's full of violence and blood, and the only image he remembers when he wakes is blood seeping through his ceiling. The dream was so disturbing and vivid that he jumps up and tells his mother; believe he really did see the blood. His mother thinks he's being hysterical, and he drags her into the room and there's no blood. He insists something has happened upstairs, but his mother manages to calm him somehow.

The next day police come around and they discover that Miles' friend has been murdered by the father. It is from this point that he stops running from the power he has and tries to use it to get in contact with Millie, but fails. He only gets flashes of her death. Soon after he can't take it any longer, with what happened upstairs and his parents not understanding what he felt for the racist's daughter, and leaves home.

p.s. The present bit was originally written with more of a focus on Miles, and Kate, but the important events to the story are more relevant to Daniel.


End file.
